The preparation of the Pentagon's 2025 budget is, like every year, an excellent source of debate and press articles. And for good reason ! This is built in 4 successive stages, all more or less public, spanning several months.
First, the Armed Forces and the Pentagon produce a forecast budget, framed by the budgetary objectives of the executive. Then, the executive arbitrates and validates this budget, which then passes to Congress. The latter must then, point by point, validate it, and often amend it.
Once the main budget has been validated by Congress, however, mass is not said. Indeed, then arrive the lists of unfunded requests from the Armies. These are programs not integrated into executive decisions, but deemed critical by the Armed Forces.
This exercise notably allows the Armed Forces to recover additional credits, allocated by Congress, to finance their programs, but also allows manufacturers to put pressure on themselves to obtain additional orders. Boeing managed, in this way, to preserve its Saint-Louis production line until 2028, even though the US Navy had wanted to stop orders for the aircraft for several years.
In this section:
A seemingly classic 2025 Pentagon budget, but very different unfunded programs
The preparation of the 2025 budget has not been particularly spectacular until now. Certainly, the budget will remain very high, $850 billion, more than the GDP of Poland or Sweden. Obviously, it brought some surprises, such as the order for a single Virginia-class submarine, or the drop in F-35 orders.
However, this is not where we should look for an evolution in the posture of the Pentagon and the Armed Forces for the years to come, but in the list of unfunded programs. Far from asking, as is customary, for credits for more major equipment, combat aircraft, destroyers, armored vehicles and missiles, the bulk of these requests relate, this year, to strengthening the combat resilience of American armies.
Thus, the US Air Force is requesting an additional $3,5 billion to stock up on spare parts, as well as to harden and expand infrastructure, particularly in the Pacific, as well as to finance additional maneuvers in this same theater.
The US Navy, too, did not include any additional ships or aircraft in this list. However, it requests an additional $2,2 billion to help transform US shipyards, as well as to strengthen and harden the infrastructure of the Guam base.
The US Army has produced requests limited to anti-drone defense, while the Marine Corps, for its part, is demanding an additional $2,4 billion, much more conventional, for the purchase of CH-53s or defense vehicles. combat amphibious ACV-30, although the bulk of its requests relate to the construction of additional infrastructure, particularly in the Pacific.
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Excellent analysis in my opinion. The peace situation for almost 80 years in Europe has put to sleep the minds of politicians and especially of the populations. Defense budgets have been the adjustment variable for governments since the fall of the Soviet bloc. Moreover, with effective Russian propaganda or disinformation, the rise of far-right parties subservient to Moscow, European countries (EU-NATO-Neutral) will have a rude awakening. And reading the comments on press articles on different sites, I am amazed at the number of people supporting the Kremlin's positions.